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Season Series To Date
| November 7, 2009 | Kanata | Devils 3, Senators 2 |
It's time for everybody in the Garden State to give thanks to the New Jersey Devils for playing at the friendly confines of the Prudential Center this Thanksgiving eve. It's the first time the Rock has hosted such a game since it opened, and coming in will be the Ottawa Senators.
And they're coming in rolling, too, having won their last 4 games, and earning points in 6 of the last 7 games (5-1-1)... which covers the time since these two teams last met in the National Capital Region. (I’m open for nicknames for the city of Ottawa, so if you have a suggestion, hit me up with it, because I think I can do better than that.)
To extend their winning streak to 4, they needed overtime to defeat the Washington Capitals on Monday night. A friend of mine from my Mafia Wars circle thinks that Mike Fisher is hot (Yes, it's a female. :bleh:), but does she think of him as a hero now, I wonder?
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Fisher: "We've been elevating our game against top teams and that's a great sign."
How modest.
He's been personally elevating his game, as well, no matter who they've been playing against. The current reigning NHL Third Star of the Week in now on a 4-game point scoring streak after netting the overtime winner on Monday. During that time, he's gotten 6 points, 3 of each goals (with 2 of them being game winners) and assists. For the Sens, it's a good sign, because in the past, they've struggled to get secondary scoring, and they're starting to get that from Fisher et al.
...
Hell, I'd even go out on a limb and say that Fisher is the #1 center in Ottawa right now. No disrespect to Jason Spezza, either, but let's compare: Fisher is second on the team with 21 points. Spezza: sitting at 4th (Which is fine. Nothing to throw the red flag up at.) with only 13.
Digressing, the Sens had their work cut out for them Monday night, that's for sure. They DID open the scoring in the first off the stick of Peter Regin... almost literally, too, as he deflected a Jesse Winchester shot to get it, but for a little while, the wheels kinda fell off as the Caps scored 3 unanswered goals over the next two periods. With things looking bleak, the Sens knew something had to be different in order to get that answer.
Fisher: "We made some adjustments in the neutral zone. We did a few different things coming into the third and we started moving our feet a little bit more and drew some penalties. We were hungry and we knew that we could come back."
And the difference was night and day.
Cory Clouston: "It was like two different teams. I thought we came out real flat. I don't know if we gave them too much respect, but we were basically in a wait-and-see mode and you can't do that against those guys. There was hardly a bad shift in the third period."
Chris Neil began the rally scoring 3 minutes into the third. I'm kinda surprised; he usually begins rallies by dropping the gloves. The goal was his fourth on the season so far, so I'll just not comment like a smartass any further about it.
Fisher mentioned drawing penalties. One in particular was getting Alexander Ovechkin sent off for roughing, which set up the tying goal about a minute into the power play. Straight up, it was point blast by Alexandre Picard.
Regulation ended at 3. At this point, Filip Kuba was having a stellar game thanks to getting assists on both third period goals. It wasn't enough, though. He would get playmaker with a secondary assist on the game winner.
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Fisher: "I don't know how to explain it. A lot of times (Daniel Alfredsson) is making a nice play and I'm the recipient. Tonight it was Philly creating it."
Kuba got it to Chris Phillips, who centered it to Fisher. The puck must have been waist high or something, because the way I saw it be described, Fisher batted the pass out of midair to put it past Semyon Varlamov. This was the sixth overtime winner Fisher has scored in his career.
Monday's game did see something freaky on the bench, as well. Number 1 goalie Pascal Leclaire was already sitting out due to a lower body injury, and was dressed as Brian Elliott's backup for the night. A puck was deflected out of play into the Sens' bench, and it hit Leclaire in the face after the ricochet off the back glass. Insert your own "Marcia Brady with the football" joke here.
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You can also see the timetable below on how long he'll be out. In the meantime, his roster spot was filled with a callup of Mike Brodeur from Binghamton.
While the Sens have been surging, the Devils have been... I don't wanna say struggling, even though they have lost their last 3 games. Some would say that all the missing bodies they have due to injuries seem to be catching up with them. That may be true, and they did lose all 3 games on their last road trip, their first 3 losses on the road this season, but all games were close, the team did not let things get too out of hand, and more importantly, they've still battled.
Jacques Lemaire on the injury situation possibly catching up with the team: "It does definitely. But, on the other hand, I felt the guys played as well as they could. We played all year like that so far and a lot of games we came out on top, but lately we're not. And they call that hockey."
Quick recap of the first two (I'll do more in depth with the third one.): They lost to the Philadelphia Flyers on Monday 3-2, which almost ended 3-1, and it could have easily been... I don’t know, 6-1, maybe, the way the Flyers' game was on point and caused the Devils fits?
Then in the Music City on Thursday, a physical battle pushed the game against the Nashville Predators to a shootout. They would lose the skills competition for the first this season when Martin Erat put it past Martin Brodeur. (That was a nice move, by the way. Made me think of a head fake in basketball.)
In that game, Zach Parise scored twice to push his goal-scoring streak to 6 games, which tied the team record set by himself and 4 others. He looked for #7 in Big D on Saturday against the Dallas Stars, but he didn't get it. The Devils didn't get an answer for Stephane Robidas, either, that night, as they lost 5-3 on the strength of Robidas' 4-point night.
Scoring depth has been a question for the Devils, as well. You knew that it'd be an issue while Patrik Elias was out recovering from his groin surgery. Well, his skating ability might still have a ways to go, but his hands are still good, it's just a matter of getting someone to put away his passes. This is where Brian Rolston and Jamie Langenbrunner come into the picture, particularly Rolston for that night.
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Rolston on his night, a 2-goal game: "As far as the two goals, it felt good to score. I thought our line had good chemisty and Patty and Jamie made two great plays on my goals."
Elias: "I thought we played pretty good as a line. It was just a bad five minutes in the third period and it cost us the game. Two mistakes on the coverage in our zone and we gave the game up. We have to be smarter, obviously, making those decisions."
Oh, right. He mentioned coverage in the defensive zone. I should go in chronological order.
He ain't lying, though, about playing well together. They opened the scoring for the game in the first minute when Rollie sprung loose and Elias outletted to him, which lead to putting it past Marty Turco on the backhand.
The defense, however, was not sharp in that first period. And I'm not just talking about Andy Greene, Bryce Salvador, Colin White, and Mike Mottau, either. Sure, they get the most notice because they're the defensemen, and they're logging a lot of minutes while Paul Martin and Johnny Oduya are out with injuries, but the forwards are out there with them, too. They shoulder just as much responsibility when there's breakdowns that leads to goals, and there were a lot of breakdowns in front of Yann Danis in the first period.
The game was tied about 90 seconds after Rolston scored when Warren Peters deflected a Robidas shot by Danis. Then, penalties became an issue. They only took two in the period, but both power plays were converted, by Mike Ribeiro and Robidas, respectively. Robidas' goal came off a rebound off the boards behind Danis that Ribeiro received and fed across to him for a can of corn shot.
For the second, Lemaire decided to shake things up a bit. He sat Danis in favor of Brodeur. It wasn't anything Danis did. Like I said, Lemaire wanted to shake things up a bit, play a game of human chess with his players.
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Lemaire on Brodeur: "I thought he would give us a little more energy and we would play better. It definitely did because we came back."
Brodeur himself stopped all 9 shots in the second, and Rolston also pulled the game within 1 on the power play with, big surprise, a blast from the point after receiving a drop pass from Elias.
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It would remain 3-2 Stars into the third when the Devils would tie it, again on the power play. Langenbrunner found Travis Zajac below the circle and stuffed it 5-hole after he got close to Turco. I had mentioned that Parise’s 6-game goal streak ended, but he got an assist on this goal, so he STILL has the point-a-game streak going for himself.
Not long after the game was tied was when the breakdowns came again, which lead to rookie Tom Wandell scoring the game winner after a quick game of whack-away. (It took him 3 tries to push it past Brodeur.)
Brodeur: "He was batting at it and he kind of pushed my leg out of the way and just tapped it in."
Robidas put the game out of reach with 5 minutes left putting away a one-timer he took from Loui Eriksson at the top of the circle.
Rolston: "I have to take responsibility for that fifth goal."
He means that he lost track of where Robidas was.
Rolston on the game as a whole: "It's definitely disappointing. We crawled back into the game and then we give up two late goals. We had a strong game all game and then we gave up those two at the end. We just have to be better at the end of the game."
Believe it or not, it's been a while since I've heard someone on this team say THAT. That's a whole nother conversation for another time, though.
The Devils can still take a lot of positives out of not only the game, but the circumstances they're in right now, which is not dissimilar to what they went through last year at this time of the season.
Brodeur: "You never want to lose, but we have to be realistic. We've done really well without some key players. It's been a tough go. We played the last three games on the road. Even though we've had some success (this season), they're not easy games to play. Now we're going to go back home to another tough stretch. It'll be another tough challenge for us. We have to regroup and keep our heads up."
Senators Injuries
| Shean Donovan | MCL damage in his right knee | Out 6-8 weeks |
| Anton Volchenkov | Dislocated elbow | Is practicing with the team |
| Pascal Leclaire | Lower body and broken cheekbone | Out 4 weeks because of the cheekbone |
Devils Injuries
| Paul Martin | Broken Arm | Out at minimum for the rest of this week |
| Jay Pandolfo | Separated Shoulder | Out at minimum for the rest of this week |
| Johnny Oduya | Lower Body | Day-to-day |
| Rob Niedermayer | Upper Body | Is skating on his own right now |
| Dainius Zubrus | Fractured Patella | Out 4-6 weeks |
| Ilkka Pikkarainen | Flu | Day-to-day |
In goal:
For the Sens, with Leclaire's freak accident now delaying his return to play slightly further (Big understatement, I'll admit it.), Brian Elliott should be getting his second consecutive start. He went 25-28 against the Capitals on Monday night in getting the win in overtime. If he does indeed get the start, it would be his second career start against the Devils. The last one was a 4-1 loss last January 27th.
...Actually, I'm kinda wishing for Mike Brodeur to start, if only for the namesake amusement that I'll get out of it. :gap: Nah, I'm expecting Elliott, I'm being realistic about this.
For the Devils, it'll once again be the proud new father (For the 5th time? I lost count.) that is Martin Brodeur. With the Devils on a 3-game skid, he, too, is on the same streak, he even took the loss in Dallas in relief of Yann Danis, who was 6-9. Brodeur finished the game 15-17 in the final 2 periods of the game. The plus, though: all 3 games did finish close, and the game against the Stars was also tied in the third.
The last time Brodeur was in net against the Sens, he went 19-21 when the team went to Kanata. The two that went in went in early in the game, and at the time, was the first 2-0 deficit the Devils had seen for a while. He would remain strong in the pipes as the Devils came back to win that game 3-2.
Now... I call upon that which is old...
